Hey people, welcome to the Beehive challenge!Note - There is a similar, Sims 3 challenge, Beehive Challenge by oceanjewel7, but it's from 2013 and the user hasn't been active since. I didn't know about this challenge when I wrote my challenge and Except from the main idea the challenges are pretty different I think.Note 2 - It can be done with the Vampires game pack, I'll talk about it later.Note 3 - Yes I know the word I was looking for is Anthill, but a Bee themed challenge is way cooler than an Anthill challenge don't you think?

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So, in this challenge you're going to run an underground cult that lives the way of the insects. Sims will be born, live their life and die underground, in order to serve an enchanting queen. And all of this while hiding from the public eye!

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An introduction to the roles of the cult:The Queen - The leader of the cult, who lives a life of luxury and comfort. She has to be a female sim who can get pregnant. The Queen can't perform any action that benefits the household or earns money (cooking, cleaning, painting, etc...), unless she has a whim for it or does it autonomously. All of her needs need to be taken care of when they're in the yellow zone, and all of her whims need to be fulfilled as soon as possible.
She has two responsibilities:
1) Reproducing - in a real beehive the Queen gives birth to the entire next generation of bees. Of course this is impossible with humans because of... You know... Incest... So in this challenge the Queen won't be the only source of babies but should still give birth to at least the majority of the next generation, and of course to the Heiress. The Queen should almost always be pregnant - in the beginning of the game or when a new Queen becomes a young adult she should try for a baby as soon as she has an available Breeder (more a about what Breeders are later), and from then on she should try for a baby the evening of the day she gives birth in, every time.
2) Recruiting - the Queen is responsible for bringing new members to the cult if needed, as she's the only one who's allowed to talk to people outside of the Beehive. (More about how she can do that in the rules section).
*The Heiress - The female child of the Queen. When the Heiress reaches Young Adulthood she becomes the new Queen. As an Heiress she has the same privileges as the Queen but without the responsibilities - her only responsibility is to level up her social skills in preparation for her future role.

Workers - Sims who can't get the Queen pregnant, aka either sims who can get pregnant themselves or close relatives of the Queen. The Workers serve the Queen and cater to her needs and provide for the entire Beehive. Each Worker should be responsible for one thing - one Worker cooks for everyone, another one gardens, another one fishes, one paints, one takes care of the children... Etc. (obviously when you start the challenge and there aren't enough Workers they can have more than one responsibility but you should work on recruiting enough people so that each Worker has only one).

Breeders - Sims who can get the Queen pregnant. They live a life of comfort and no responsibilities, but their only goal is to impregnate the Queen. Once they do... Well they're no longer needed.
I came up with two different ways to have Breeders, pick whichever you prefer:
1) *Requires GT* Create a club for the Breeders. In the club activities choose 'Eat', 'Sleep', 'Play video games', 'Be romantic with everyone' and 'Whoohoo with everyone', and in the banned activities choose 'Clean', 'Cook' and 'Fix objects'. After you create the club, whenever a sim fills the requirement to join the Beehive (more about that in the rules section) have the Queen invite them to the club, then start a club meeting and just never end it. Give the Breeders beds, food and all of that stuff because they live in the Beehive now. When the Queen needs to try for a baby, have her do it with one of the Breeders and then execute them (whenever in the challenge you need to execute a sim you can do it in any way you want. In my gameplay I go for the pool option, but my gardener Worker is already working on growing a cowplant!).
2) Join the sims who can get the Queen pregnant to the household. They will be regular Workers with responsibilities. Once the Queen gets pregnant (or at the first day of the game if you're just starting) pick one of them to become a Breeder. This sim will have no responsibilities during the four days the Queen is pregnant. Then the day she gives birth she should try for a baby with the Breeder. If the attempt is successful  the Breeder returns to being a Worker, but if the attempt fails they will be executed. After the deed is done pick a new sim to be a Breeder and repeat.
Even though I have GT I tried the second option first because I don't like having sims around that I can't control. But the household grew too large quickly and it was hard for me to remember which sim was the Breeder this time so I moved to the first option and now I'm pretty pleased by it. The only problem is that sometimes they don't put the club outfit I made them which just ruiNS THE WHOLE AESTHETIC!

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Getting Started With the Challenge:

1) Start a new game and set the lifespan on short.

2) Create your Queen and 1-2 Workers (depends on how difficult you want it to be) in CAS. If you can, make the Queen a supernatural. If you create the Queen as a human then give her some physical attributes that can make her stand out from other sims, like a unique hair or eye color. This will help to determine the identity of the Heiress. The Worker/s should all be human.

Note about the Vampire pack - I think making the Queen a vampire is a great idea, it fits the underground thing really well and the cult thing too. However I don't play this challenge with a vampire so I don't know if there's anything that can make the challenge too easy. Vampires live forever but you can decide on a restraint of your own that if the Queen doesn't have an Heir after a certain amount of time the challenge fails. And the same thing with the vampire powers; you can get some of them but if you feel like it makes the challenge too easy then stop. It's all up to you it's your game after all. But if you do encounter something that makes doing the challenge with a vampire impossible, please tell me in the comments!
3) Give the Worker two everyday outfits - one that looks normal and one that someone who lives in a cult would wear. The normal looking one is in case they would need to go outside (you don't want anyone to suspects do you?). Other than the everyday one make all of the other outfits cult looking ones. If the Queen is human than do the same thing for her. If she's a supernatural than make her human form the regular one and her supernatural form the cult one.

4) Place the household at the 50X40 lot in Newcrest.

5) Build the shell of a small house. Don't build anything inside it, just make it look like the outside of a regular house. Place curtains on all of the windows (again, can't have anyone suspecting anything). Now to the real part - underneath the house build a basement and place stairs that lead to it inside the house.

6) Start making rooms underground! You may use the remaining Simoleons you have. You can use all of the Simoleons and leave yourself with only a small amount for the challenge, or you can use less and save money for the challenge itself. But no money cheats! The point of the challenge is to expand your Beehive's size as you grow and get more sims to join.
You should make at least two rooms though, the bedroom of the Queen and a bedroom for the Workers. Have the Queen's room be generally more expensive and fancy than the Workers' room.

6) Lock the front door to anyone except the household. This will prevent curious sims from wandering into your hideout (If you choose the club option of the Breeders than unlock the door for them to get in and then lock it again). If your Queen is an alien this is the time to give her a normal looking disguise.

And that's it you started the challenge! Have the Queen start looking for Breeders as soon as possible to get that baby business rolling and have the Worker/s start serving the Queen!

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Rules:

1) Outsiders can't find out about the existence of your cult! Every time a member of the Beehive walks outside to harvest/collect/fish they have to change into their normal looking outfit, and no outsider may get inside the Beehive. Also if the Queen is a supernatural, when she's talking to outsiders try to keep them from discovering it.

2) Only the Queen can talk to outsiders. Other sims are allowed to get out to harvest/collect/fish but can't talk to anyone.

3) The Queen can only join a sim to the Beehive once they have either a full friendship bar, a full romance bar, or half friendship and half romance (decide which one suits you for every sim you want to recruit). Even if you have the option to ask to move in earlier, you still have to fill these conditions before you do.

4) Both Workers and Breeders can and should have babies to make sure there are enough sims for the next generation who aren't related to the Heir, but the Queen should still have the majority of the babies.

5) Children who would grow to be Workers should spend their time until becoming young adults to develop their skills in their designated fields. That means no school! If you want to you can download the No School mod (the link is at the bottom) but you don't really need it if the lifespan is on short, because they don't have enough school days to miss in order to drop their grades low enough to be taken by the Social Worker.

6) If you chose the club option for the Breeders, the children who would grow to be Breeders should be evicted from the household when they're children and move to some random household, and then join the Breeders club and come to the Hive again (toddlers can't join clubs so they should still stay in the household. Don't kick you little one out of the house!).

7) No pregnancy tests for the Queen! You can't speed things up!

8) The first girl the Queen gives birth to becomes the Heiress, but if the Queen gives birth to another girl before the first one ages to a young adult, the one that has the most unique traits from the mother gets to be the Heiress. For example, if the older girl has the mother's eye color and the younger one has her mother's hair and skin color, than the younger one is now the Heiress and the first one becomes a Worker.

8) Once the Heiress becomes a young adult and becomes the new Queen, the previous Queen should be executed (you know what they say, Out with the old and in with the new ).

9) If you want another sister to be the Queen even if she doesn't qualify according to rule 8, or you want the mother to continue being the Queen and live, then the claimer for the throne and the Heiress should fight to the death. Make their relationship get low enough that they have the option to fight and then have them do that. The one that wins becomes the Queen and the one that loses should be executed.

10) An optional fun rule - every time a new Queen is crowned she can make one change to the rules of the Beehive. You can make it so that Breeders won't be executed, the Heir would be a man and not a woman... Basically anything you want. Of course you can change the rules whenever you want to because it's your game and the challenge is just for fun, but if you do it once a generation it would be really interesting to see your Beehive change as the generations progress, and it would also be fun to see how different everyone's Beehives will look like after a few generations.

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Challenge Goals:

Choose one or more of the goals below:

1) Last 10 generations.

2) Expand your Beehive until there's no basement space left.

3) Become a self-sufficient colony - get the Beehive to a point where it can survive on its own without the need for anyone to go outside ever. This means all the Breeders and Workers are born in the Beehive, they grow all of the ingredients they need for food themselves, they have enough money to continue expanding without going outside to collect... All of that.

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Now for a list of cheats and mods that can help you!

None of them are mandatory for the challenge but they can make your life a lot easier:

Cheats:
 traits.equip_trait Player - Adds the Player trait to the sim that you control when you type it (it's the trait you get when you complete the Serial Romantic aspiration). Add it to all of your sims to avoid the annyoing jealousy problem.
 bb.moveobjects - in case you want to put in your Beehive things that are usually above ground or outside like plants.
 bb.showhiddenobjects - if you want to add something that isn't normally available in Build/Buy mode like a fishing pond for example.

Mods:
 Child and Teen can Quit or Rejoin School - I haven't try this mod because since the lifespan is short kids and teens don't miss enough school days to get taken by the social Worker. But if you're tired of canceling the 'go to school' action every day than try it and tell me if it works! It works after the for the Cats and Dogs update and EP.
 Full House Mod - lets you have more than 8 sims in your household. Be careful not to enter CAS/Plan Outfit or try the Move In option when you have more than 8 sims in the household because this will erase some of them. The move in action should be done with the cheat that the mod includes. If you want to edit sims is CAS just got to another household and use the cheat to move the sims you want to edit there and then you'll be able to do everything. Note: I havn't really played with my Beehive save since the Cats and Dogs EP. Today (31/12) I opened the save, played for a few seconds and saved and it worked just fine, but I read on the mod's discussion that for some people the mod doesn't work. So please try and if you're having problems tell me.
 Try for Baby in Larger Households - the full house mod lets you add more sims to the family but doesn't make the 'Try For Baby' interaction available, this mod makes it available but doesn't let you add existing sims to the household. You can have just the first mod, or just this mod, or both of them. Note: The same thing. It worked just fine when I played but please tell me if you encounter problems.

Bonus CC:6 New Fully Functioning Alien Skintones - One of the skins here is the yellow skin I use for my alien Queen in my game. It acts just like a regular alien skin, it even passes to half alien children! It works after the Cat and Dogs EP.

Hey people I just wanted to jump in and say that I'm posting updates about my gameplay of the challenge on my blog, Head Full Of Sims! My Queen is pregnant for the first time, and recruited a second Worker!
Here are some screenshots from my blog: